Will 76ers Pair Al Horford, Joel Embiid More With Ben Simmons out?
When the Philadelphia 76ers started practicing down in the Orlando bubble, everybody couldn't help but talk about the team's new starting lineup. With Shake Milton entering the rotation as the starting point guard, that moved Ben Simmons to power forward. As expected, Al Horford became the odd-man-out.
The fit with Joel Embiid at center and Al Horford at power forward all year long has been awkward. While Embiid and Horford can sometimes coexist, it made sense for Brett Brown to split them up as long as Ben Simmons was healthy.
Heading into the scrimmage games a couple of weeks back, Brown rarely had Embiid and Horford on the floor together during practice. While Horford made it clear that he and Embiid would inevitably share the floor at specific points, Brett Brown seemed to be committed to keeping the duo's time together during games at a minimum.
But at this point, that doesn't seem to be the case. On Wednesday, Sixers starting forward, Ben Simmons, injured his knee. Now, Simmons is out for Friday's matchup and could potentially miss even more time moving forward. With Simmons out of the Sixers' rotation, what will Brown do in regards to Embiid and Horford? Will he continue to keep them separated as much as possible? Or pair them up even more?
"If I had to tilt one way or another, I would pair [Joel Embiid and Al Horford]," Brown revealed on Thursday afternoon. "We've played around, and game planned and spitballed what this actually looks like now and if you made me wake one area or the other -- I would pair them. I feel like there are ways where I'm going to be able to do a little bit of what I did previously and split them up. If you want to get some level of a concrete answer, you'll listen to pair them."
While Brown won't reveal the team's new starting lineup with Simmons out until Friday's game against the Magic, it can be assumed that Horford might find himself back in the mix at power forward. There's a slight chance the Sixers could throw Glenn Robinson III in at small forward, shifting Tobias Harris to the four -- but having Horford in the starting lineup again sounds more likely at the moment.
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter: @JGrasso_
